The Survivors (Book 2): Autumn (25 page)

There, I helped her to change into a nightie I’d salvaged for her and put in her backpack, gently explaining the difference between night clothes and day clothes
.  As always, she was a quick study.  I was still sitting on the edge of her bed, talking to her, when Michael returned from taking the dog out.

I hadn’t even realised he was there until I happened to glance up and noticed him standing in the doorway with his arms crossed, smiling affectionately at the two of us
.  Suddenly feeling shy, I smiled back and absently tucked a strand of hair back behind my ear.

“Doggie sleep with me?” Priya asked suddenly, looking back and forth between us.

I glanced at Michael, who shrugged.  There seemed to be no good reason to deny her request, so I acquiesced.  “Sure, sweetie.  Call him to you.  Say ‘come, doggie’ and clap your hands so he can hear you.”

“Come, doggie!” she promptly cried, clapping her hands enthusiastically
.  The dog’s ears pricked up.  After she called a couple more times, he padded away from Michael’s side and went over to the edge of the bed, sniffing curiously.

“Now, say ‘up, doggie’ so he knows he has to jump up,” I instructed
.  Priya mimicked me obediently.  After a few false starts and a little help from the humans, the elderly canine managed to get up on the end of the bed.  “There you go.  Now, you go to sleep and he’ll go to sleep as well.”

“Okies,” Priyanka answered agreeably
.  I leaned down and gave her a gentle hug, then she lay down and snuggled herself up under the covers.  Michael and I said our goodnights to her and backed out of the room, closing the door behind us.

Then we looked at one another, and I found myself grinning
.  “So, what was that about a hot shower?”

***

Hours later, I awoke to darkness, my back snuggled comfortably against Michael’s firm, warm chest, his arms wrapped like a blanket around me.  I could hear the sound of his breathing, slow and even on the back of my neck.  Nature was calling, but I didn’t really want to get up.  I closed my eyes and tried to go back to sleep, but the pressure in my bladder was too uncomfortable.  As much as I wanted to stay in bed, I couldn’t.

With no other choice, I carefully extracted myself from beneath my sleeping lover’s arm, taking my time to avoid waking him
.  Although the room was pitch black, I’d left a torch beside the bed in case of circumstances like this.  I fumbled in the dark and found it, then tiptoed towards the door.

The lights were all off in the hallway outside our room
.  I had no idea what time it was, except that it was night.  Still, a need was a need, so I clicked the torch on and I crept along the corridor towards the nearest bathroom.

A few minutes later, I was on my way back to my room when I accidentally took a wrong turn and ended up in an unfamiliar corridor
.  Just as I was about to turn myself around and retreat back to an area that I knew, a strange sound reached me and made me hesitate.  It was coming from around a bend in the corridor.

Always alert for trouble, I followed the sound until I reached the corner
.  When I peeked around, I saw a shaft of light cutting through the darkness.  The sounds were coming from that doorway.  They were strange, animal sounds, grunts and curses, and the sound of flesh striking flesh.

Then there was a woman’s cry, strange and strangled, that struck a chord of concern through my heart
.  I clicked off my torch and hurried forward, my bare feet silent on the cold concrete floor.

With as much stealth as I could, I crept up to the partially open door and snuck a look through
.  The sight that greeted me was the last thing that I expected.  I was so stunned that I stopped and stared for a long second before I retreated and headed back towards my room.  There was no one in that room that needed my help… but they might if Jim figured out what was going on.

Not only was his wife cheating on him, but she was doing it in spectacular fashion
.  I couldn’t even imagine taking on two men at a time, let alone big, strapping lads like Tane and Iorangi.  One was more than enough for me.  Her muffled cries and the look of devilish enjoyment on her face echoed in my head as I fled, trying to put the scene behind me.

I felt a little nauseated by the time I got back to my room
.  I hadn’t seen anything that intense since the one time Harry had convinced me to watch a pornographic video with him.  Now, I was left feeling dirty.  As I burrowed back into bed and hid safely under Michael’s arm, I tried to remind myself that it wasn’t my fault.  I hadn’t encouraged her to cheat on her husband, and I’d only gone to look because I was afraid someone was being hurt.

Even snuggled under the warm, comforting bulk of my sweetheart’s body, it took me a long time to get back to sleep after that.

***

When morning came, I woke up feeling guilty and slightly soiled
.  Normally, my dreams were a happy place, filled with friends, family and the warm, sensual moments that I shared with Michael.  After what I had seen the night before, my sleep had been troubled, filled with vague, shadowy human forms playing ‘the beast of two backs’.

Well, the beast of three backs, technically
.  That made it so much worse.  In spite of my effort to suppress the outward signs of my disquiet, I shuddered at the thought.

“What’s the matter, sweetheart?” Michael asked
quietly, just about scaring me out of my skin.

“Nothing,” I said quickly, but he knew me too well to let me get away with that.

“Really? I felt you shiver just then.  It’s not cold, so that means you’re brooding.” He propped himself up on an elbow and leaned over me to switch on the light, so that he could study my face.  “Ah-hah, just as I thought.  You look like you kicked a bunny.  What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything,” I answered glumly; there was no point in lying to Michael when he could read me like a book, “but I saw something last night
.  I don’t know what to do about it.”

“What did you see?” he asked, gently capturing a strand of my hair and plucking it out of my face
.  I cringed, because telling him meant I had to think about it again when I was trying very hard to block it out.

“I got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom.”
I sighed, finding it hard to meet his eye.  “On the way back, I got a little lost.  I ended up in another part of the building.  I saw… I, um…”

“Out with it,” he
demanded when I hesitated a few seconds too long.  My shoulders slumped.

“I saw Mrs Merrit shagging Iorangi and Tane
.  Now I don’t know what to do.” I buried my face in the pillow to try and hide my anxiety, but it was a pointless endeavour.

“Wow, that is a pickle.”
I could hear the disapproving tone in Michael’s voice, but I knew it wasn’t aimed at me.  “We should probably tell Jim— wait, Iorangi
and
Tane?”

“At the same time.”
I lifted my head and turned to look at him.  If I had to suffer, then so did he.  It wasn’t that they’re unattractive people, but there was something so slimy about the whole situation.  Even if it weren’t for the infidelity aspect, Rebecca Merrit was at least fifteen years older than the younger of the two brothers – that made her old enough to be his mother.  An underage teenage mother, but still.  The cheating aspect was worse though, and made me feel really sick.  “Christ, what do we tell him? Do we tell him? Is it our business?”

“It’s our business now,” Michael answered grimly, his expression set in a look I hadn’t seen before
.  “If I cheated on you, you’d want someone to tell you, right?”

The logical side of my brain knew he was just using that as an example, but the irrational, emotional half heard those words and promptly went nuttier than a drunk wombat.

“Yes!” I exclaimed.  “I mean, no, I mean—oh my God but you’d never do that, right? I’m not sure I could handle it if you—”

“Whoa, whoa, calm down.”
Michael held his hands up in self-defence, a panic-stricken look crossing his face.  “Where did that even come from? You know I’d never play around on you.”

“I know, but I don’t know – anything could happen
.  You might start to hate me one day, and then you might cheat on me and then… and then…” And then I burst into tears.  The worst part was that I could actually see myself going nuts, and I knew it was completely and utterly without reason.  It was like the rational part of me was looking down from above, watching my emotional side go into total overload, without being able to do anything about it.

Poor Michael looked about the same way
.  His expression was one of utter bewilderment as he struggled in vain to comfort me.  Neither of us could quite work out what was going on, until it suddenly hit me.  My fit of inexplicable rage the day before, followed by the intense desire to screw his brains out, and now this? There was only one possible explanation.

As suddenly as they had started, the tears stopped
.  I stared at Michael with wide-eyes, not quite sure how to react.  “Oh, my God.  Honey, I think I’m premenstrual.”

“…What?”
He just looked even more bewildered.

“Oh, um… hormonal
.  I think I’m hormonal.” Well, this was an awkward conversation to have with my boyfriend, but he did have a vested interest in that region of my body.  “Like, seriously hormonal.  As in, I think I’m going to get, um, ‘that time of the month’ soon.”

“Oh.”
He stared at me for a long second before realisation dawned in his eyes.  “
Oh. 
You mean…”

“Yeah
.  I mean that.” As soon as I had a name for what was bothering me, I felt much better.  Embarrassed, I summoned a weak smile for him and I wiped my eyes.  “I’m sorry, I haven’t had one in years, so I guess I’m a little unbalanced.  I think my body kind of forgot it was female for a while there.”

“Thank God, you had me panicking.”
Michael looked so relieved that for a second I thought he was going to faint.  “It’s okay, no harm done.  That just means that you’re recovering and getting healthier again.  That’s good news.” He smiled at me and gave me a hug, which instantly made me feel better.

“I’m so glad you understand.”
I snuggled up against him, feeling relief like a palpable force.  While I wasn’t looking forward to dealing with ol’ Aunt Flo again, at least I knew it was in the name of the greater good.  “Actually, I’m glad I understand, too.  It’s been so long that I had no idea what was going on at first, but now it all makes sense.  You know I’m not usually this irrational.  I think it’s just been so long that things are a little haywire inside me.”

“It does make sense, and it’s a good thing
.  I want you to be healthy.” I felt tender fingers running through my hair, and then Michael gently pushed me back to look me in the eye.  “In the meantime, I know what will make you feel better.”

“For once, I’m sad to say I’m not quite in the mood.”
I gave him a wry smile.

“What?”
He blinked owlishly.  “Oh! Oh, no, not that.  I mean that I have a present for you.”

“A present?”
This time it was my turn to look surprised.  I thought about it for a second, then tilted my head curiously.  “Is it food?” The moment the words were out of my mouth, I suddenly felt stupid.  “Wow, I really am premenstrual.”

“No, it’s not food
.  It’s a real present.” Michael laughed and tickled my ribs, drawing a girlish giggle from me.  Then he slid out of bed and rose to his feet, padding barefoot over to where our bags sat in a corner.  He knelt beside his backpack and dug around in the pockets until he drew out a couple of small, shiny objects that I couldn’t quite make out from afar.

“What is that?” I asked, curiosity getting the better of me, but he closed his fist around the
shinies before I could get a good look.

“Well, I had an idea
.  Something Anahera said got me thinking.” Michael returned and stood in front of me, dressed only in the boxer-briefs that he usually slept in, and the bandages over his wounds.  Gazing down into my eyes, his expression turned serious.  “Life is short and brutal.  We really have no idea how long we’re going to have together.  Either one of us could die tomorrow.  If that happens, I want the world to know how much I love you.”

My breath caught in my throat as he eased himself down onto one knee on the ground in front of me
.  He opened his hand to show me his gift: a pair of rings.  One was simple and delicate, made for a woman’s finger.  The other was a thicker band, clearly designed for a man.  Each ring was threaded onto a delicate silver chain.  I stared at them for a moment, and then looked back up at his face.  “But I thought…”

“I know
.  But, I also know that I want you to be my wife one day.  No one says we have to get engaged one day and married the next.  If we get engaged today then we can wait as long as we want to make that final step.” A smile touched his lips, just a faint ghost.  “There’s more to what we have than just lust, and I think you know it as much as I do.  You are my Yin.  I want everyone to know it – and most of all, I want you to know it.  Marry me, Sandy.”